grandfather with breast cancer...question, please help!

daisymae8585

Hello,

I am a 30 year old female. When my paternal grandfather was in his late 70s, he was diagnosed with breast cancer and later, melanoma. He passed away 25+ years ago, so never was tested for BRCA. My grandfather did not have any daughters, and had no sisters, and to my knowledge hhis mother did not have any sort of breast cancer. My grandfather's son (my dad) passed away at 56 years old in a car accident and was never tested for BRCA, but had never had any sort of cancer at the time of his death. There is no other family history of cancers in my family, aside from my grandfather and one second cousin on my mom's side (who was diagnosed at 68 years old). I plan to talk to my Dr., but just wondered if this history made it seem necessary for my to get tested for BRCA?

Thanks!

Moderators

This is a very good question, but worthy of asking for certain. In the meantime, you may also consider reading some of this, if you haven't already.

Genetic Testing

Research News and Genetic Testing

Let us know what you decide!

farmerlucy

I think any history of male breast cancer deserves a conversation with a genetic counselor. When I saw one he was quite interested in my family history of male BC and it was several generations ago. Also there is a new self-pay genetic breast and ovarian cancer panel from Color Genomics that was recently released. You might ask your doctor about that. It includes the Brac genes and more than a dozen more. You can't be too cautious, but at this point I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Best of luck!

Traveltext

My mother died of breast cancer aged 41. I'm one of her four sons, aged 64, and have just finished treatment for BC. None of my brothers have it yet. I've had genetic testing and they found a variation of the BRCA gene, but of an unknown variation and hence the hereditary connection is unsure.

Having a grandfather with BC means that, if he had a genetic propensity to the disease, he would have had just a 50 per cent chance of passing the gene to your father, who would have had had a similar chance of passing the gene to you. Since there is no genetic material available from your two paternal ancestors, there is obviously no way of determining your susceptibility to the disease.

I believe you will be advised that there is little point in you being tested because the chances of inherited BC genes are so remote that the worry of the whole exercise that would likely end in an inconclusive result means you would be none the wiser.

Join a screening program if you are worried about your chances. After all this is all you would be advised to do if you were found with a defective gene.